Research Assistant Jobs

Commences/Duration: 17 March 2025 – 30 November 2025
Estimated hours: Minimum 200 hours
Location: Remotely
Closing date: Monday 3 March 2025
The project
In recent years, various stakeholders have called for modern slavery legislation to be introduced in New Zealand (NZ). While the previous government proposed legislation, the National-NZ First-ACT coalition government, which came to power in November 2023, has stated that legislation is not a priority. Notwithstanding, domestic and international pressure on the government to introduce legislation remains strong.
The research focuses on two key areas: 1) how social policy reform occurs through processes of social entrepreneurship (SE), and 2) the role and dynamics of leadership and grassroots organising in driving such reform. The research will analyse the ways in which individual and collective actors engage in leadership work within a social movement aimed at social policy change. The study operates across multiple levels of analysis, identifying processes and practices of SE and leadership which catalyse movement and progress. It also aims to understand what happens when things pause or stop, and the social and organising processes that follow. This is novel territory for leadership scholarship and would provide insight on the progress (or lack thereof) of modern slavery legislation in New Zealand.

The outputs from the research include articles and a multi-media teaching case, designed primarily for leadership development. The case will focus on leadership capabilities needed for effective engagement in complex, evolving environments of social reform.
This project is being led by Dr Rhiannon Lloyd, Associate Professor Christina Stringer, and Dr Brent Burmester.
The role
You will be required to carry out tasks related to an academic literature review with a particular focus on research in the areas of modern slavery, social entrepreneurship, and leadership. As well as collecting secondary data resources like publicly available company and legislative documents from the last decade, linked to modern slavery legislation both nationally and internationally.
Key skills/attributes
You will need to have experience in building a literature review, show competence with internet and database searches (for example, organisation websites, databases like EBSCO and Newztext), summarising key information from sources, and building a library of relevant resources. It would be beneficial to have an interest in one or more of the research areas, like the social context of business, social movements, social responsibility, and/or leadership, but it is not essential.
Contact details and application process
Please send your CV and an expression of interest to Nicola Russell (n.russell@auckland.ac.nz) to be considered.
 

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